The Passage of the Damned

Elsbeth Hardie joins us to tell us about her new book which tells the story of how in 1797, the British government pressed a small group of French and German prisoners of war into the New South Wales Corps, gave them firearms and placed them as guards on a ship carrying 66 convict women and two convict men to New South Wales. The result was a mutiny some months into the voyage in which the captain of the Lady Shore was killed and the fates of all of those on board were tied together as the ship was taken to South America.